


maybe it is all they say (how can i ever let go)

by yallbitter



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:09:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25462990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yallbitter/pseuds/yallbitter
Summary: We all hold onto things, whether we know or not.Sokka doesn't know, and it's tearing him apart.How can you release something that you don't realise you're holding?
Relationships: Aang & Toph Beifong & Katara & Sokka & Suki & Zuko, Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar)
Kudos: 61





	maybe it is all they say (how can i ever let go)

**Author's Note:**

> I like writing these little stories, I think I'm gonna keep doing it  
> Expect more zukka oneshots from me lads

The afterlife isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

In truth, it’s mostly just sitting and waiting. Waiting and sitting, watching the world spin past you in a kaleidoscope of colour and light and endless, endless time.

Sokka reached out to grab a snippet of the brightness that surged past in a river of boundless dreams, but it slipped through his outstretched hands as if it was a phantom. Taunting him with the knowledge that he’d never get what he’d had before back, forcing him to pull back as though burned.

This river wasn’t for him, and it never would be. His life had been torn away and sent tumbling down the river long ago. How long ago he couldn’t say, but it certainly felt like an eternity.

As far as he knew, Sokka was alone here.

He’d seen his old friend Aang briefly some time ago, but he’d moved on, to be reborn into his next life. He’d seen snapshots of everyone he loved soar past, and all he wanted was to join them, to get out of this never-ending, monotonous drone of seeing everybody else move on, while he seemed trapped in this strange, heartbreaking limbo.

Not for the first time, he cursed himself, he cursed the spirts, he cursed whatever damned Being was keeping him here and torturing him with visions of things he could never have again.

And then he saw it.

Hot tears burnt their way down his brown cheeks, and he furiously tried to prevent a chocking sob from escaping his mouth as he watched his beloved sister pass beneath him.

Her spirit was moving slower, trying to hang back and he wanted to tell her no, that she should continue, that she has to keep going, and then her eyes meet his and she sees him and nobody has seen him in so long but he tells her to go, she has to go, Katara you can’t stay please please, _please._

And she smiles one last time at him.

And she lets go.

And he watches her until she fades completely, hanging his head in his hands and crying like a child into his palms.

He can’t help but think that it’s been too long, he’s been here too long and he’s going slowly insane and then a weight on his shoulder gives him pause. He turns and sees a strange robed figure behind.

Let me go, Sokka pleads. You have to let me go.

_I know. I lost you once. You have evaded me for a long time, Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe, but it is time for you to move on. They await you._

And he stands and he follows this Being out and away from the colours and light and into an inky darkness that swallows everything and everyone except the figure in front of him. In the distance he sees a square of light, and he swears he can hear the sound of laughter.

The voices of his loved ones.

He hears Aang, that boy who became a man and lead Sokka on the greatest adventure he could ever imagine.

Katara, his cherished little sister who outlived him, and kept doing that until the very last.

The easy, smooth sound of his lover’s voice talking about the changes he’d made to the fire nation in his rule, and Toph, who he swore up and down was too stubborn to die until he saw her spirit go past, poking tongues all the way.

He opens the door, and is greeted with love that he thought he may never get back and for the first time in a long time Sokka thinks that maybe the afterlife is all they say it is after all.


End file.
